Ian Hislop comes out on BBC Question Time

As the leading political satirist of a country whose present government’s idea of tackling the worst economic crisis in generations is to shoot badgers and tax pasties, bedrooms and grannies – I expected Ian Hislop’s head to have been bursting with hard-hitting nuggets of pure comedic gold when he appeared on BBC Question Time last Thursday.

But surprisingly, Hislop spent most of his appearance actually praising coalition ministers and the government.

First of all Ian praised the prime minister for his speech on the EU.

Then he answered a question about the massive cuts to our armed forces by attacking Labour for ‘wasting’ so much money at the MoD when it was in government.

Satire is supposed to prick the consciences of those in power – with the word ‘prick’ being the operative word.

But not only was there no comedy from Mr Hislop – I couldn’t even detect any criticism at all directed at those running the country.

Ian doesn’t seem to have realised yet that Labour are no longer in power.

The country’s now being run by a triumvirate of out-of-touch Bullingdon Club caricatures, whose idea of being in touch is to eat Pizza in an exclusive Swiss ski resort while the rest of the country launches headlong into austerity and an unprecendented triple-dip recession.

So what’s happened to the editor of Private Eye?

I suspect Hislop’s problem is that he’s being confronted by a government which he actually rather likes – surely professional death to any satirist.

I recall a couple of quotes from Hislop which I dismissed as meaningless at the time.

In an appearance on Question Time in 2008, he praised the Liberal Democrats and even joked about “standing for them.”

Ian has also said in an interview that if he were forced at the point of a gun to stand in an election for any British political party, he would stand for a “Vince Cable for Treasurer Party”

A situation we actually just about have now that Cable is Business Secretary.

What to do when our country’s so-called leading satirist is a secret right-wing Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg supporter who’s quite keen on what those in power are actually doing?

Erm. Can we have a new editor of Private Eye please?

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His swipes at Labour were perfectly valid BUT they effectively become support for the coalition, who’s mantra of ‘it’s all because of what we inherited from the last Government’. Not a particularly sophisticated stance from Hislop, and you are right, on the whole he came across as a supporter more than a critic.

As for the pizza link. Bit weak that. Looks like the journo’s had a piece written with sordid details on lavish expensive meals (which Cameron would be only too aware of) and wrote it, despite the fact they only got a picture from a pizza restaurant. Bit of a non story going nowhere and devalues your argument somewhat.

I’ve always thought Hislop was orientated to the right. Even his predecessor, Richard Ingrams, was a small “c” conservative. The Eye is the house journal for the Oxbridge establishment, in that sense, it has become the very thing that it eclipsed: Punch. Remember Punch?

Hislop is adept at criticism but far too comfortable to rock the coalition boat. His HIGNFY show is tired, played out, and increasingly irrelevant, but it does still serve to enrich the Hislop coffers, and to keep him onside at the expense of licence fee payers.

He attacked Labour because its true that £37billion is missing from the defence budget and no arrests have been made as after all you would be charged for Benefit Fraud far less fraud while holding public office as he suggested. Biased Journalism here on your page just as the BBC can commit at any given time 😦

Robert – you’re missing the point. The time for satirists to attack Labour was when they were in power – not three years later.
There are plenty of things the present government is doing which need to be highlighted.
Satire – by its very definition – cannot support those who are in charge of us. Because by doing that it ceases to be satire.
It’s not biased to expect our so-called leading satirists to aim their attacks on those in power.
Not unless you’re a secret government supporter – which like Hislop – I suspect you are.

Is there a rule which says satirists have to be from the left. IH appears to be centrist in his politics, so what. At least on Question Time he gave his own views unlike the politicians who always boringly stick rigidly to the party line. He is chosen to be on QT to provide independent views with a measure of comedy/satire, he did this reasonably well but wasn’t outstanding.
Obviously he is never going to repeat his crowning glory when he slaughtered Mary Archer in 2002.

Clive – no rules about satirists being left-wing but there are definitely rules about satirists not supporting the status quo by praising those in positions of power.
If he wants to speak out in support of the government – that’s his right – but he should then drop the pretence of being a satirist.

Do satirists have to be satirists 100% of the time. If they sometimes support the status quo why shouldn’t they say so. It’s also partly an age thing, young satirists tend to be angry and against most status quo things, with age their views mellow.

It’s not an age thing at all. Satirists aren’t satirists if they support the status quo.
As for Hislop – he was invited onto the BBC Question Time panel in his capacity as a satirist.
Otherwise the BBC could just invite any person down the pub to give their views.

Hislop has a former Grammar school twerp who discovered satire to prevent his head being flushed down the loo by the Rugger Buggers.
With aspirations of having been part of the Bullingdon set himself, he feel more in tune with the “educated, but not moneyed, upper middle class Liberals” who made their way off the back of a free University education when times were better in the 1960’s and 70’s.
There was no voice from the Left what so ever on last week’s panel on BBC QT.

Hislop has no time for the Left and probably sits somewhere between UKIP and the Tories.
Hislop secretly loves the Pinko Liberal ideology but knows it to be unfashionable to say so..
Ian Hislop likes to save money. After all, nobody reads private eye despite him being on HIGNFY round the clock on Dave and elsewhere.
It’s printed on recycled toilet paper, in an unappealing format, with a tiring writing style that drones on in a whinging and irritating narrative,
Much like Ian himself during several public speaking engagements I have witnessed.

Ian Hislop has moved to the right, along with the vast majority of British middle and upper class journalists and political commentators.
The Labour party were a re-branded version of Thatcherism dressed up as Blairism.
Everyone satirised Thatcher and Blair, but they were still in power for ages.
Gordon Brown is a good man, but was not media savvy, so was taken apart by the chattering media classes who are part of this countries establishment.

Nobody seems to satirise Gideon and Dave in the press, simply because there are a lot of people who still think they are doing the right thing?

Why?

Because people like Ian Hislop think the Con-Dems are doing the right thing by Britain.
Ian isn’t stupid, but he is certainly tempted by the idea of backing the winning side for self-interest and personal and professional gain.

If he increases the readership of the “eye” he might be able to afford a better printing company, better paper with better investigative journalists who un-doubted, will be even further attuned to the neo-Liberal doctrine of free market enterprise with a society that relies on charity for the poor.

I am disappointed and worried that social cohesion and inclusion is so far off the political agenda.
With prolonged austerity, comes deeper divides in society.
Sure, Labour got a lot of things wrong.
It got most of it wrong, under Blair though.
The Con-Dems have done nothing to improve matters and have in fact made things even worse.
It’s getting worse in countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal and further afield too.

Hislop is a small state Englishman who secretly mistrusts Jonny foreigner like so many middle class Tory and UKIP voters. The poor and the working class have no say in the matter but are certainly living in fear of the consequences of immigration.

The trick the left are missing is that there are many people who are not “British” living in the UK who are suffering at the hands of the Liberal and Right wing exploiters…
Farmers and Factory owners will soon have a workers revolt on their hands if this madness continues.
Only a Quadruple dip recession followed by a global banking collapse will alter the course of this government. And they are determined to stay on it, despite Hislop joining in with the Tory narrative of “its all Labours fault!”
It’s not the Labour party who caused the banking crisis, it was the banks themselves!

Let us examine Pride’s World closely. The BBC must feed us a diet of left wing drivel. Indeed Private Eye must feed us a diet of left wing idealogy. The noble Labour Party must never be criticised. If you do so you must be a fascist and stopped from telling the truth. I must forget that Tom pride wants us to be ruled by a chancellor who did not know he had a 76 billion structural deficit at the height of the last boom. In Pride’s world there must only be one box to cross on the ballot paper, LABOUR. Interestingly as a Conservative voter, if I had a thousand quid for every local goverment left-wing extremist and union activist who announced loudly, aggresively to all in their place of work ‘If you vote Conservative you should not be employed by the Local Authority/ Civil Service etc’ I would have been able to retire many years ago, a very rich man. You will of course have been horrified by Ian cornering that corrupt hypocrite red Ken Livingstone, and forcing him to admit on HIGNFY that all his money went into an overseas account, a Consultancy Company, specialising in giving advice to city authorities throughout the world, and receiving his ‘pay’ from this overseas account. He admitted what everyone in the Labour Party and the left-wing press hads denied, claiming it was a Conservative smear campaign.You have forgotten Paul Merson and Richard Herring muttering Ed Milliband over and over again during a question on super-injunctions. I am sure Ed Milliband has not got a super-injunction, and I am sure it would have nothing to do with the disposal of any inheritance from his Marxist father, as Marxists of course do not believe in personal property. It is very simple Mr Pride you do not have a sense of humour and therefore cannot actually ‘do’ satire. Expressing your hatred of people with which you disagree is prefudice. As the inventor of Satire, Patronius Arbiter said so succinctly, ‘You can see the flees on me, but you cannot see the ticks on yourself’.

It seems to me that whatever Heslop’s views are he has a responsibility as a satirist to question the status quo. By revealing his views when he arguably wasn’t being paid to be a satirist he has rather shot himself in the foot….and indeed disappointed, though not entirely surprised, some of us.

Bookworm – show me where I said the BBC must feed us a diet of left-wing drivel.
Mind you – my blog can’t be all that bad. It’s got even foamy-mouthed, right wing Conservative supporters like you reading it – and to write lengthy comments about it too.
Job done.

Crankyacid, ‘the mantra’ as you call it, is perfectly reasonable. Gordon Brown’s, very good joke, about the advice he received from his predecessor who gave him three letters and was told to open each in turn when he got into trouble, is relevant here.During the first crisis, he opened a letter, and it said blame your predecessor; during the second crisis he open a letter, it said blame the economy; during his third crisis, he opened a letter, and it said, write three letters. The electorate so far have given all except one goverment since the Second World War two or more goes to sort out the economy, and in point of fact every goverment, including Labour one’s are prisoners of their predecessors for at least four years. The last Labour goverment inherited an economic boom, and close to a balanced budget. it was in a strong position, but smartly in my view chose to adhere to Conservative spending plans for four years. This also involved significant cutbacks for local authorities, which impacted directly upon service users. Yet the unions did not go on strike, and pseudo-protestors did not burn and loot our cities. Strange that. Gordon Brown unwisely in 2001/2 announced a massive five year spending plan, which was not budgeted; it was predicated on ‘growth’. In 2007 instead of reigning back, as good Keynesians say you must he announced another spending plan, again unbudgeted. Again predicated on growth, which on this occassion did not happen. Since 1990 neither goverment has attempted to do anything to narrow the countries trade deficit, and that deficit has to be paid for either by a fiscal surplus, which we do not have, or more borrowing. Labour left ‘a perfect storm’ or should I say an ‘omnishambles’ , of the biggest national debt, probably ever, (as oddly the bank bail out is not on the current account, as of course unlike Iceland, Eire or Portugal goverment did not actually take over the banks); an enormous fiscal deficit, and a growing trade deficit, (most of our trade deficit is with those good fair minded fellows in the EU). I do not think this goverment has done everything right, nor do I put it very high on competence, (at the moment it is bumping along on a level with Brown, Calaghan and Major), but I have heard nothing from Balls to convince me he would do any better; and I do not think I have heard anything at all from his little acolyte Ed milliband. The one goverment the British people did not give a second chance to was that of Ted Heath, who was unfortunate with the oil crisis, but displayed monumental incompetance in relation to the unions, and of course by joining the EU guarantteed the mass unemployment of the seventies and eighties, simply because British industry was not in a fit state to compete once all trade protection was removed.

Surely satirists have a reponsibility to include all sections of society as potential targets not just the status quo, although the status quo/governing groups will mainly be the target as they do are actually doing things whereas opposition groups are just talking about what they might do.
A good source of satire should be people in any political party with strong tribal views who believe anything any opposing group does is wrong/evil whatever the facts of the situation.

You’ve clearly never studied the relevent ‘regulars’ in the Eye, ‘HP Sauce’, ‘New Coalition Academy’, ‘Dave Snooty & his New Pals’, to name but THREE that lambast the PM and his Cabinet with vicious precision. I lost count after THIRTY, seperate articles in the latest issue, which derogate the Tories or their policies. I fear the pervading stench of Socialism is muddling your perceptions, somewhat……

Spudgun – “I fear the pervading stench of Socialism is muddling your perceptions somewhat…”
And with that sentence I fear the pervading stench of Anti-Socialism is muddling your perceptions somewhat….
On a more relevant note – if you took the time to actually read the article above, I’m not attacking PE or claiming Hislop is a supporter of Cameron.
I’m accusing PE’s editor of being a Lib Dem, Vince Cable supporter.
The evidence for that supposition is pretty strong I believe.

This is odd as Ian is no fan of corporate skullduggery. He contacted a journo to investigate something I wrote to him about on that matter. Oh and let’s not forget the investigations into paedophiles in positions of power. Oh lets not forget his admiration for the late Paul foot who wrote for the eye. He also ridiculed Louise mensch on hignify . Oh and he signed a private eye year book for me

As I said. The swipes at Labour were valid.I would even go on to say that being HM Governments opposition is still a position of power in my book. Compared, let’s say, to tapping away ineffectually on a laptop in the outskirts of Manchester. So attacking Labour isn’t a resignation of all satirist credentials, just an undermining.

However I would argue that this government has done a lot worse than just ‘not got everything right’. What was missing was someone who would throw light on it’s failings but what we got was limp support for the status quo from the person we looked to.

Question Time would be auchincloss better programme if they binned the party hacks entirely and replaced them with non aligned sorts like Hislop.

Private Eye is the closest we come in this country to an unbiased press outlet; they will report on stupidity and injustice in government, local authorities, NHS and the police with equal vigour, regardless of party.

Labour truly f*cked the economy, with PFI, cosy tax deals with the likes of Vodafone, starting to privatise the NHS, ridiculous overspends on defence, and PE denounced them all, long before the true effects were obvious.

They highlighted Murdochs baleful influence on UK politicians of all stripes.

And they also exposed Cyril Smith and Savile donkeys years ago.

In 2 of the 3 cases you highlight, Hislop agreed with a FACT. Big deal, get over it

Tom bookworm like most Tories are stuck in the cold war. Perhaps he would like to tell us what’s to support the Tories ?
They are threatening to close my local hospital. The health minister is a mate of mudorch he hates nhs. The Tories were meeting up with private health bods during the listening exercise . The welfare reform is a shambles which will result in ppl being homeless and worse off whilst they collude with the media in slagging off unemployed ppl whilst their corportatd buddies line their pockets. This aint a left right thing its a right wrong thing

And of course, we know the last Labour goverment got nothing wrong. We know this because they tell us every day, every hour, every minute that they were perfect, and that if elected again we would have even more of their perfection. Whatever happened in this episode to so outrage the left, HIGNFY regularly highlights any failings of this goverment; and many BBC news programmes do so, often through satire; not to mention that the BBC have actually added an extra national news programme on Sunday, and of course have attempted to revive TWTWTW, with rather dire results. Was there no extra news in 2008 to warrant such an extension of news coverage? Nor is there a lack of left-wing press both able and willing to satirise and criticise the goverment, The Independent, Guardian, the Mirror for instance, and they regularly do their news slots on BBC and Sky news to pddle their opinions. For those who actually remember their history the Sun was a Labour suporting newspaper from 1969 to 1978, and from 1996 to 2009,and if anyone believes the Murdock press is not also after this goverment, they have not read it recently. I as a Conservative except the right of all of these people to make negative comments, and if those comments are genuinely funny, usually laugh. It is the left that are incapable of self-criticism or self analysis; the problems are all out there, they must be pinned on someone else.

Satire has never been exclusively about criticising the goverment; it is about exposing pomposity and hypocracy whereever it is. To highlight one particular area of hypocracy, Labour’s attempt to turn paedophilia into a political issue. The vast majority of abuse in children’s homes was physical cruelty, which does not get acknowledged at all, but the vast majority of sexual abuse was committed by residential staff, whether social care or teachers, with a scattering of non-residential social workers and foster carers. Many of the abusers were investigated, charged, put on trial and imprisoned most of them during the time of the Thatcher and Major goverments. Before then the response of most major institutions to allegations of physical or sexual abuse, which often came from staff shocked by what they saw and heard, was to ignore the allegation, silence the whistle-blower, or to move the alleged offender to somewhere else, or to pay him, (the list of North Wales offenders indicates they were not all men), to go quietly. I have pointed out before (and as a whistle-blower in the 1970’s I have direct experience of this), every paedophile that was quietly moved or queitly paid-off by the LA, was supported in getting their move, or getting their payoff, by a NALGO or NUPE official, many of whom are Labour Party councillors or even MPs now. As far as I am concerned they are as bad as the paedophiles they protected.

That makes me quite modern then, as most Socialists are locked into the 1920’s or even the 19th Century. Labour built, (by massively increasing the national debt),lots of new hospitals and massively extending existing ones. This expansion was predicated on closing and selling off the old Victorian hospitals, and the smaller ones. Hence in my town, which is about as Labour as you get, the big out of town centre hospital has been massively extended, and even accident and emergency moved there. The town centre hospital, the eye infirmary and other small units have all been closed, as has the out of town rehabilitation unit, (though the in town one has been extended). Strangely all of this means there has been a significant shift of resources from the underclass to the middle class, as the middle class are more likely to access a suburban hospital than a town centre one. Interestingly at the last election the Conservatives were proposing to eliminate the national debt over 5 years, but Labour were proposing to half it in the second half of the parliament, that is from December 2012 to June 2015. I am sure that as a gifted intellectual you will realise that means that starting last month Labour would have had to raise taxes or cut services at exactly the same level as the coalition to achieve its target, with exactly the same impact, for good or evil, upon the economy.

Yes Labour got some things wrong, but to keep banging on about all the world’s faults being attributable to the previous administration as we approach this government’s mid-term has long passed from having any credulity into needle stuck in vinyl territory.
The more you carry on about it all being Labour’s fault the more desperate and pathetic you sound.

In any case, blaming the previous government is so passe. It’s the weather you have to blame for the desultory economic performance as we slide down the piste into a triple dip recession. Not the ConDemn’s incompetence of course oooh noo. Deffo they are not to blame.

As for Hislop, it is not satire to agree with the government. If that is his opinion so be it, but it ain’t a fair and balanced debate if all members of the panel are old boys from the same club.
So switch off the gramophone click switch off the gramophone click switch off the gramophone click…

Just because IH is a satirist it doesn’t mean he can’t support particular government policies on Question Time which is a serious discussion programme, not satire. The programme makers invite him on to discuss things seriously in keeping with the aims of the programme but with the odd satirical comment thrown in. The guests are asked on to give their real opinions not to put on an act, although most guests from our political parties rarely give their true opinions, and are usually a waste of time.

Hislop was invited on to the panel as a satirist – we expected wit combined with insight into the underbelly of the rich and powerful.
No-one’s interested in what his personal opinions are. Might as well just ask someone down the pub.

I am afraid that’s wrong. He’s asked on to give his personal opinions, that’s what QT IS ABOUT. However, as a satirist I agree that wit is expected in expressing them.
Your reference to the rich and powerful shows your bias. They should obviously be the target of satire but any part of society should be potential target if they merit it.

Satire does indeed use, “…humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues” (Oxford Dictionaries)

By ignoring to expose the stupidity and vices of the incumbent incompetents is unforgivable for someone who professes to be a satirist. He should attack the vices irrespective of party. His observations ought be beyond party lines. But they are obviously not.
So he was invited to provide his political preferences? In which case, as I said above, there seems to have been a lack of balance ie bias in favour of the right, which is not very sporting of Auntie Beeb.
naughty *wags finger*
What happened to QT having a balanced spread of opinions?
Forget that it was Hislop, forget satire, why was there not a voice on the panel to counter the toadying?

There was probably was a bias towards the right of centre in that edition of QT. However, not every edition can be perfectly balanced. Is it fair to call agreeing with particular aspects of government action toadying, he has nothing to gain unlike party politicians who do it all the time hoping to get promoted or at least keep their jobs.

I had my suspicions for a while but when the Coalition came in,
I thought finally Ian would stop knocking Labour and turn his beady eyes on this shower of fools, but surprise surprise… As weeks went on & turned to years he turned out to be a short fat Tory in disguise…

Tom I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to be terribly disappointed with Ian Hoslop and by the look of your responses there are lots of us. What a let down! I always liked him but he gave away his right wing political views quite openly on Thursday and I agree we need another editor of Private Eye. ” A short fat Tory in disguise” is a perfect description….what a waste! Couldn’t understand why he sided with the Soubry woman who was all fake empathy and head nodding….shame on them all!

As I perused other readers’ comments, I was disappointed to see government advocates still blindly believing Osborne. Since he took over the treasury the deficit has increased, not decreased.
Further, he took over a much healthier coffer in t’treasury than Gordon Brown did from the Tories. Balanced books indeed!!
Gordon Brown helped low paid workers afford to live. His policies helped raise British children out of poverty. The only problem I have with then is, bankers were not being hauled over the coals for their greed. A bit like this lot NOT doing anything about tax dodgers.
Osborne and the sec of state for works n pensions, the right DIShonorable IDS, have sent thousands of children into poverty, cut benefits t disabled and sick, are going to send hundreds of thousands more disabled and sick into solitude and penury with their disgusting changes to DLA.
Then there’s the deficit. Osborne is borrowing far far FAR much more than labour. But, I suppose, Tory and lib dem worshippers will, as we fall into recession 3, 4 or more, times still believe Osborne knows what he is doing. If the consequences were not so dangerous and deadly (73 sick/disabled/vulnerable deaths a week AFTER they’d been put thru the unfit for purpose WCA), I would laugh.

I’m so pleased other people are finally seeing through Ian Hislop. His overly vicious attacks on Gordon Brown before the election frequently bothered me and I felt he enjoyed attacks on Labour a bit too much. A few appearances pre-2010 confirmed for me that he was in essence a Conservative.

HIGNFY was very slow to restart after the election and when a new series was finally broadcast it was surprisingly apolitical. On the few occasions it now touches on politics, the targets of ‘sattire’ are: all politicians, foreign political figures, sometimes Lib Dems and, occasionally, minor Conservatives. Cameron and Osborne are carefully avoided as objects of ridicule.

It seems many working people thought they were watching a harmless bit of political (and even-handed) satire. In fact, HIGNFY was a perfect opportunity for Hislop to do his bit for the Conservative push for power. We’ve been had!

Re. satire: While we are all busy pointing and giggling at the corrupt establishment we are signally failing to muster torches and pitchforks and march on up to Westminster dragging tumbrils and guillotines in our wake. It’s not actually a laughing matter, in a democracy, to be serially and repeatedly lied to and betrayed by those we have elected to represent *our* interests. Satire, and a “free” press (cough…Leveson…cough) are tolerated for just this purpose.

Don’t be surprised if a leading satirist turns out to have been a quisling all along. The little people didn’t make up the rules of the game and it is never, ever explained to them.

It’s ludicrous to call Ian Hislops views right wing. He’s probably right of centre and in the mainstream. Why dislike him because he has some Conservative views, it doesn’t change him as a person. Is it beyond the pall to have such views, I was under the impression we lived in a society where we can disagree on politics and still be friends unless the politics spread intolerance as with the BNP etc. As for Private Eye all that matters is whether he’s doing a good job. The editor shouldn’t let his political views influence the content of the magazine to ensure wrong doing, hypocrisy etc is exposed in any part of society.

Absolutely spot on that we’ve been had by those masquerading as political satirists when in reality they just did a hatchet job on Labour & sat back to let the Coalition lie to all of us.
I always despised the little toad that is Hyslop, hypocrite of first order.
I say just end the farce that is HIGNFY, its not funny any more.

Tom can I say this ? The lot on the right don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves. Bring back hanging so what if an innocent dies as result . Privatise the planet all that matters is someone makes a profit . All.disabled are lazy . Any one who disagrees is a paid agent for the kgb.
And so on. The left are all hand wringing mustnt upset the bloke down the road .
So what is the answer?

IH appears to have some Tory views, none of which are extreme, but are in the political mainstream. It doesn’t make him a bad person. To dislike someone for opposing but mainstream views is out of step with the principles of a tolerant democrat society. Such an approach can lead to an unhealthy polarisation of the political system such as exists in the USA.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17072715
“Indeed Mr Brown’s sole personal earnings are his salary as an MP because he has also renounced the prime ministerial pension he was entitled to receive immediately he retired as PM.”
The evil money grubbing bastard!

People like myself have had nothing but abuse from “mainstream” conservatives.
You expect us to behave like saints and turn the other cheek, except that already has bruises; or maybe you prefer subservient plebs who know our place, and are expected to remain silent.
The anti-EU xenophobia is not exactly about tolerance either.

Classic Tory response ..talk down to everyone to.show how superior you are.
Well.you didn’t do the quote back thing.
That’s irritating.
I see its all about the money all the time.
Sod the public as long as you don’t have to cough up for anyone else that’s ok.
As for jezza hunt as health sec. A man so miscast its embarassing. But nice job to help out your mates like dicky branson and hid virgin on the ridiculous health care where even a judge thought they were illegal.
And of course there were never any Tory paedos were there of course not.
Ted heath.a good pm. You have no idea.
Murdoch is an opportunist he will back any party just to suit himself . He even backed Chinese dictatorship because of his interests there so dont start that old crap. Ha ha . Classic Tory troll who loves to talk down to ppl to show his own superior intelligence…. well you didn’t do the typical quote back so that makes a change.
Still we got jezza hunt as health minister a man so miscast as health sec its a wonder why he got the job in the first place . Still a good place for him to help his mate dicky branson with his crappy virgin on the ridiculous health care . A company that a high court judge suggested was practically illegal.
But I.guess there were no Tory paedophiles ever oh no of course not o mean Leon Britain was completely blameless. And that’s just one.
Ted heath good pm ? Oh ha ha . You have no idea…

Twerp..

Stupid WordPress ..wipes out what you write then when you rewrite it puts it back. Wish they would fix this bug.

What she said was not racist in the slightest. A fact Brown himself acknowledged when he issued his grovelling apology.

Gordon Brown also declared Iceland a terrorist state, and added them to a list of terrorist states. Their crime was to arrest the bankers after they bankrupted the country. He will be long remembered in infamy by Icelanders for this.

Similarly he scuttled off to ratify the Lisbon treaty in an underhand fashion which gave a further measure of the deceitful, bullying, incompetent man that is Gordon Brown. Please don’t attempt to rehabilitate his reputation here, the history books will show that he was as prime minister exactly what one of his colleagues predicted he would be – ‘a fucking disaster’.

And if the woman was racist why the much televised apology? Why apologise to a racist unless you’re a two-faced cunt?

You are evidently cut from the same cloth. Are we to understand that no-one has a right to express a legitimate concern for fear of being branded racist? Similarly Israel can do no wrong lest I be an anti-semite?

FYI I swallow no shit bait, neither Murdoch’s nor yours. I value the evidence of my own eyes and personal experience. No doubt I too would be smeared as ‘racist’ for voicing a concern, that didn’t chime with your particular political agenda. Being black, and having a niece who is Muslim, it still wouldn’t trouble you in extending that epithet to me to further your point I take it?

‘Banging on about immigrants’ is exactly the sort of dismissive, partisan, and dogmatic interpretation of a counter point that this country has endured during the Blair/Brown years. It’s stale, it’s old, and it’s transparent – as were mass murderers Brown and Blair. Why not use your time in future to eulogise Ian Brady? – You’ve more chance of success.

Cut from the same cloth… comparing Gordon Brown to Ian Brady…
Your grasp of reality is so poor that you cannot figure out why the public apology.
Good grief you must be even more stupid than I gave you credit for.

Ian Brady, however despicable and abhorrent his crimes has nothing on this government . 74 per week. The Moors Murderers can’t compete with that. Not in the same league.

You are clearly grasping at straws to resort to nasty ad hominems and worse language.
The woman clearly made racist remarks, If it had been anyone other than Gordon Brown, it wouldn’t have been an issue. .
Brown was right you are wrong however much you try and discredit him or me by such disgusting analogies. It says more about your own poor judgement and character than either Brown’s or mine. Your slanderous, vile attack does yourself even less credit.
.
A blog discussing the Old School Tie brigade becomes an attack on a former prime minister, who it so happens just doesn’t quite fit in with the clique does he. Well that makes him a pleb so he must be fair game.
You will have to remind me old fruit, just how was Gordon Brown is connected to Hisslop on QT? I seem to have forgotten.
Is it merely a diversionary tactics take the attention away from Ian Hisslop
Mustn’t criticise the establishment must we. Sorry once again for refusing to doff my cap and the good old Agincourt wave to you.

Thought I’d note my agreement for your point on Brown since others seem so determined to paint him as a villain. I think he was a pretty appalling PM in the end, had no end of trouble with his media image, and given the rumours of his temper I’d say he was far from perfect as a human being also, but I think there’s a core of decency to him, and I don’t understand why people can’t see that because the evidence, should one choose to look for it, is all there.

Then produce your evidence for the crimes that you allege. For proven Labour Party Paedophiles access Labour 25. Of course you may be suggesting they were all ‘tooled-up’ by the authorities, who let Conservative ministers go. In which case produce your evidence.

“The woman clearly made racist remarks, If it had been anyone other than Gordon Brown, it wouldn’t have been an issue.”

Interesting if duplicitous take on reality.

So “British jobs for British workers” wouldn’t be considered a ‘clearly racist’ statement by you had it not been uttered by Brown?

People have the right to express concern on any issue they like. You are not the arbiter of what is or isn’t ‘clearly racist’. I grow weary of individuals such as yourself who try to beat down legitimate concerns with the racist stick. It’s fascism. Perhaps if you understood politics on a higher level than you apparently do you would know that.

Blair and Brown are responsible for more innocent civillian deaths than Ian Brady – Fact. Brown was complicit in an illegal war, he lied to involve us as did Blair, and the many lives lost as a result of that war are therefore results that he sanctioned. Brown should be in the Hague as a war criminal next to Blair.

If Brown was right and I am wrong as you suggest then we surely live in a topsy turvy world. He knew of Blair’s criminal conviction for importuning, he knew of the dodgy on Iraq, he knew the kind of hate filled smearing government he was a part of, yet simpleton’s like yourself still still consider him a good man? Do more research before spouting your codswallop in future fella, because those of us that already have don’t buy it – however much you peddle it.

Ok I don’t have time for an obfuscating Tory.
Seriously what the fuck is your problem?

We have a government in charge that is screwing up the economy, making lives a fucking misery for millions, then announces a billion pound white elephant project to get to Manchester, via Brum 10 minutes sooner.

And you drone on about a back bench MP who you dislike because you believe the shit in the Sun.

Sorry for the swears but I am out of patience. You can abuse others as much as you like but need look to yourself first.
Now please excuse me while I talk to the wall. It has more understanding, compassion and flexibility than you will ever possess. It is also more interesting.
Even if it didn’t go to the right school.

I have looked at Ramesh Patel’s article. He fails to mention that all of the key players, including the IMF have endorsed every one of George Osbourne’s budgets, and indeed are the chief promoters of austerity. The IMF’s most recent comment is that the rate of budget reduction should be slowed down, not that it should be reversed. He also fails to mention that the national debt of 42% of GDP was reducing, and that its reduction to 29% by 2002 was as a consequence of Gordon Brown carrying out Kenneth Clarkes budget plans for four years. He also notes this had increased, (in a boom according to Keynsians it should decrease) to 37% by 2007. 37% of 1.7 trilliuon is I believe the structural deficit of 76 billion, which Ed Balls did not know existed, now that is Satire. According to the BBC Goverment Spending, which is not the same as the national defficit grew from 35.5% of GDP in 2007 to 56.8% of GDP in 2009, and almost certainly grew some more by 2010. Goverment spending is currently 61.4% of GDP, and so the goverment can no more than claim it is stopped or slowed the rate of increase. Ramesh Patel makes the point that a big country, which he thinks we are, can have a bigger debt than a small – this is true – but the tipping point, that is the point when creditors become reluctant to lend is about the same ie 90% debt to GNP. This figure is currently 86.8% and this is why Alisdair Darling was also proposing austerity if Labour had won, and in Ramesh does not comment upon two other figures which prevent the economy from growing, namely that Labour left the economy with companies having 120% debt in relation to annual income, and individuals with 140% debt to annual income. All of the evidence I have seen indicates that the ‘maxed out’ generation are too busy repying their debts, (which is very sensible and what they should do) to become ‘confident’ and reflate the economy. That is an economic reality that Labour would also face if in power. The article was cited no doubt because of the political leanings of the Huffington Post, which I would guess is right of centre; it ought to be noted that both Kenneth Clarke and Alisdair Darling were put under great pressure by their backbenchers to draft inflationary and therefore ‘feelgood’ budgets in 1997 and 2010, and both to their credit refused to do so. I would guess that there are many Conservative backbenchers urging Osbourne to do the same, and of course Ed Balls is promissing practically everything, all of which will be paid for by the ‘filthy rich’. We will see.

Terribly sorry, just a short note in response to the above.
MD of IMF, disagrees with Osborne’s hacking at govt expenditure.

And he isn’t done yet. Whilst ensuring his friends and family are safe (can’t deprive the rich of an extra thousand.or two) he, Iain Duncan-Smith etc intend imprisoning over 500,000 chronically sick/disabled people in their homes, by ensuring DLA in its’ new guise of PIP, doesn’t get into their accounts.

Before you defend Osborne, or any govt prat at the moment, I suggest you have a look at BlackTriangle website or Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC). Perhaps even some of Calum’s List-a list of some of those who have died as a result of Osborne and Duncan-Smith. If that doesn’t make you rethink sTory worthiness, try some coroner’s reports, where they are now stating if the torturous WCA has played a part in a person’s suicide.

Yes, labour introduced Atos to the ill and disabled, but Duncan-Smith and his disciples altered the initial assessment. But do your own research.

You have expressed your opinion about things yet to happen and as such they are not fact. However you are welcome to express your opinion, as by the way so am I. I do plenty of research, and would I probably know as much about those who receive state benefits as you do, as I have worked with them all my life. If your party is so convinced that austerity is wrong why does it simply not state that it will engage in a significant spending plan, perhaps equivalent to that of Gordan Brown between 2002 and 2007. It should then cost it, and then tell us, the electors, where it is going to get the money from. Until it does that you are likely to get austerity either way. Of course it may be in your personal self interest to vote Labour, most Labour voters vote Labour out of self interest, it is not a humanitarian act. You are not worthy of the Nobel prize, though you seem to think you are.

Not my figures, but government Minister for Disabled, Esther McVey, parroting Freud or Duncan-Smith or some other penny pitcher, who claimed over 600,000 PEOPLE, who currently receive DLA, will not receive PIP. Now to my poor brain, that smacks more of government contrivance and number/word games to reach their desired end, rather than a method to help anyone….other than themselves (higher salaries, expense accounts, shares in companies awarded public contracts ad infinitum).

As to your knowing “as much about those who receive state benefits as” I “do”. Perhaps. I’ve never laid claim to knowing it all but, to me, and a few thousand others who live this life at sTory whims, your claim is purely anecdotal.

Why must I “have” a party affiliation? My views are entirely my own, not formed out of a misbegotten sense of loyalty to a liege lord aka party chairmen. But, BW, my views on public investment are not out there on their own. Oh no, quite a few economists and tax experts take the same line. And these are people who actually work with money and theories for a full-time job-not merely as a political game as that smirking, laughing jackanapes of a chancellor does…especially when hacking benefits.

“Where will the money come from?” you ask. Well, let’s see…tax-dodgers, sealing off their tiny loopholes so they, legally, are termed tax-avoiders. Hire those recently dismissed HMRC inspectors and set them loose, no curbs on their investigations…go get ’em. Turning ultra-rich from the handout queue by setting their taxcode high enough to be fair to ALL citizens. Restart Gordon’s Sure-Start programme, his family credits too. Get those children recently fallen back into poverty, out of it. Again. In fact, make a living wage a legal necessity. Then working tax-credits will be a thing of the past. Hospitals…Hire nurses they’ve trained and qualified. What sense in sacking the newly qualified nurse, training more and then, because of a shortage in qualified staff, hire in agency nurses at a greatly inflated price.

Now, “labour voters vote out of self-interest. It is not a humanitarian act.” You forget, Tories weren’t elected, they do not have a mandate, nor do they have the will of either commons or lords on their side to do to the poor ad they are doing. They have the libdem. Now THEY do vote out of self-interest.

Bookworm says he has worked with benefit claimants all of his life, is that why he supports this government so vociferously, as with most of those working in the wrong profession they resent their clients, the ones that keep THEM employed.

Bookworm has not shown any resentment of benefits claimants in his posts. Guy Fawkes views of him seem to be based on prejudice ie all Conservatives views are evil as do many of the posters on this thread.

Hi Guy, no I did not resent my service users, and did my level best to provide the best service I could. This included ensuring that they got the maximum benefit they were entitled to. It also included trying to improve their parenting of their children, and also protecting their children from them when they behaved neglectfully or abusively. How dreadfully oppressive of me. You of course might be able to blame the Conservatives for the fact that many of the parents on my caseload preferred to spend their money on drugs or alcohol; if you examined a 100 case conferences you would find in at least 60% drugs and alcohol significantly impacted upon the parenting.

I would note that when income support and the social fund were introduced the same hysteria took place; the poor were going to starve, the disabled were going to die; life as we know it was going to come to an end, (by the way that is satire). I observed the transition process, and as far as i could judge, everybody ended up roughly where they were before. Incidently one or two of my clients were defrauding social security under the previous system, and continued to do so under income support, mainly by claiming income support and child benefit from multiple addresses. That was a minority but a very skilled minority of my case load. The income support system which Labour criticised so noisily in opposition was left more or less intact by them for 13 years. I suspect the same will happen with the current reforms.

My personal view is that all the major public services have suffered so much change at the hands of both the Conservatives and Labour for so long, that there should be a moratorium for say ten years to see just what works and what does not. That is not going to happen because really the public services is all that goverment actually controls. If we took that from them there would be nothing for them to do.

The posts on this thread if you actually read them consist of fairly moderate centre-right views, and abusive, aggresive, threatening left wing views. All I can say is the latter is consistent with my experience of many labour supporters and union activists in local goverment, and I had forty years of that.

Mild centre-right views as opposed to aggressive left views.
Well I may as well live up to stereotyping you vacuous trollop of the right.
Is it any wonder we are angry?
The abuse, stigmatisation and bullying we have received from the oh so polite right wing government has pushed us beyond patience.

You pretend to have knowledge and insight to justify your posturings, but haven’t got an iota of what it is like to be on the receiving end of the torrent of pigshit dropped on us from a great height.
This is not comparable to previous shifts in benefit systems, but a concerted attack on the unemployed, low waged, sick and disabled.

I don’t ever recall such a campaign of vilification, not even in the wretched barren days of Thatcher. There are constant fabricated stories being printed in the press about benefits abuse and scroungers, with ITV’s Daytime show getting in on the act.

A friend of mine has just learned that from her massive payout of £60 per week she will now be expected to contribute 14% of her rent thanks to the Bedroom Tax devised by a bunch of thieves who have spare rooms coming out of their arseholes.
Who incidentally are getting second home grants and making a profit from the purchase and selling of land paid for by taxpayers in the form of expenses.

People are dying, losing their homes, struggling to make ends meet while all this is going on and you expect us to doff our caps like good docile plebs?

Nice to here from you again. I am pleased to hear that you do not work in the public sector, or are dependent on benefits, and therefore could not possibly see it as being in you self interest for Labour to return to power. I rarely experience such a dispassionate response. Yes there are economists who do not agree with goverment policy, the BBC economists for instance do not. They state fairly clearly where they are coming from, which is that they hold a neo-Keynsian view. However they accept, as you do not that other economists reasonably hold different views.

You are in agreement however with Ed Balls, which is that all of Labour’s expenditure, (if there is any, and we are still to see if Labour really holds a significantly different position from the Conservatives) is going to be funded by the ‘filthy rich’. Most goverments of both complexions have implied this in opposition, and it has never worked in practice. The reason is very simple, which is that the top 1% of income earners, (which is defined as those who earn over £120,000) already pay 27% of the direct taxes. This will be about 500,000 people; maybe a little more. As you have stated many of these people are tax dodgers, and on the fiddle, but you are expecting them to pay for your spending programme. Clearly such an honest set of people are going to do this. And if they do your economic strategy will work, and of course we can pay unlimitted benefits, we can employ tens of millions of public sector workers, and while we are about it lets us have an army as big as China’s, and put the first Brit on Mars, (by the way i would nominate you for that honour, note that is satire)

What happens if you are wrong, and this group of thoroughly dishonest miscreants move let us say to Belgium or Luxembourg? The bulk of the taxation would then fall upon the most vociferous class of all, the ‘squeezed middle’ which the two Ed’s are smoozing for all their worth. This is the part of the population which has complained the most about any increase in taxation or any reduction in public services. This is the group that earns £43,000 to £120,000 a year, and therefore includes most academics, most public sector managment as well of course as the bulk of the professional classes in the private sector, (there are not that many Freddie Goodwins about).

What follows is anecdotal, (anecdotal is used by socialists to dismiss any experience which does not accord with their dogma), but in my last few years as a social worker i did agency work, and always opted to for PAYE. This is because as a Conservative ‘I am incredibly relaxed about people being filthy rich, provided they pay their taxes’. Most of my left-wing colleagues, (including members of the Socialist Worker’s Party, opted to set up their own agency, which meant that they only paid corporation tax on income not considered a legitimate expense, ( and in relation to business rightly or wrongly much is considered to be a legitimate expense). The same will be true of most agency nurses and doctors, most agency teachers, the majority of whom are likely to be quite left-wing. Increasingly even social care workers, (I suspect this is not good for them personally) are being encouraged to be ‘self-employed’ or set up their own agencies. Tax avoidance is not the preserve of the ‘filthy rich’ or the political right.

What I find most revealing about your post, how you completely grossed over YOUR party’s figures re the current DLA recipients who are touted to lose mobility funds upon their configuration to PUP……oops…..(Freudian slip, Tory govt selling us pups…..and they’re failing at that too)…PIP.

Let me remind you. 600,000 DISABLED/SICK PEOPLE will be denied the freedom of movement. The new qualifying criteria is purported to change the <50m current walking distance to <20m. In addition, the removal of the very short, but heavily loaded, statement "in a reliable, safe and timely manner". The removal of THAT statement leaves the person at the hands (mercy) of a private company which is paid on results. Abhorrent to all justly minded folk. But you ate a Conservative, so that doesn't apply. (Especially when this govt :cough: stops legal aid for benefit tribunals.)

That you gloss, no, failed to address the above in your post resembles your leader, Dave, who unremittingly fails to answer a direct question! Deficit and debt….didn't he know the difference? And you have the gall to condescending berate any other possibilities?!!

Oh, BW, you are a complete Tory. So don't sell yourself short, you have all the snide, patronizing, smirking, snorting attributes of your front benches.

And that Mars shot? Seriously, if I believed that you and your ilk would be left in charge of the world, for the rest of my lifetime? I'd volunteer – like a shot.

Hi there Kelpiemare, you seem to be losing it completely, and I do expect better of you. I am not avoiding, as you suggest, the subject but we start from different positions. You ask, ‘what can my country do for me?’, and I ask ‘what can I do for my country?’. The two questions are different. This links with ‘The Other Man’, I believe if you want to give all of your wealth to the poor, that is ok. I will do nothing to stop you. But you believe , ‘I want to give Bookworm’s wealth to the poor, because I envy him’. That is very sad indeed, because I am almost certainly poorer than you, and indeed most left-wing people I know. I do not envy that – I resent you being hypocritical. You act entirely in your own self interest, while pretending you have concern for the poor. You are happy for other people to pick up the bill for your personal philanthropy. I am sure it helps you sleep at night. As I quoted very early on in my posts, which by the way is on the subject of Satire; Petronius Arbiter, who invented, if anyone did, the genre; ‘You can see the lice on me but you cannot see the ticks on yourself”. I would strongly advise everyone to think on that before criticising others.
Love and peace.

Look into my face – my name is Jasmine –
I am also called Tira – Maria Coldwell –
I no longer hold to my ear the seashell;
no longer do I sit silent and unseen –
or hold to my eyes the glass where what is seen
is a face broken by my parent’s spell –
now bruised and palid form intolerable.
Hidden from the world my death scream.

Broken me – how still I am – while you dart
from excuse to lie – expressing such surprise
at my waisted body and distraught sighs –
did you see me smile when you chose to depart?
As I sat there too afraid to flinch and start –
hungry and parched with cold colourless eyes?

Me with a little help from Dante Gabrielle Rosetti. Why not blame this on the CDonservative Party as well?

I did say fair taxation for all, not “less have all the taxes from the rich”. Or do you consider someone, with cancer, receiving chemotherapy, being told they will have to undertake a Work Capability Assessment whilst they undergo that awful, but essential, treatment, whilst George Osborne cuts 5% off of top tax payers? Perhaps you do. This horrendous government does, and all good Tories must too.

Woodlands under labour seems to be the latest spin of Daves’. From 2005 to 2010, yes, under labour, rose from around 3000 to 40,000. Trussell Trust figs-approximately. From 2010 up to present day, foodbanks are now at approx 140,000 and by the end of this year, at current rate of growth, the number is expected to rise to 230,000. Now Dave used the percentages, which made his “big society” label disingenuous. But he is a multi-millionaire that didn’t ask “what can I do for my country” but grasped free nappies and DLA-definitely a case of “what can my country do for me”. Now THAT is hypocritical.

Another example. A person on jobseekers allowance. A princely sum of £71 per week. Out of which the transport to jobcentre and interview, heating, food, clothing…and then, a late arrival at the job centre….a late letter, a wrongly addressed letter, no responses from prospective employers…..not good enough…and earns a suspension. Not for a few hours. For days, weeks, months and even up to 3 years as one moronic tory mp put forward.

Shoplifting is on the increase. And, with gloomy heart, i expect a few other crimes where lack of benefit has created a criminal underclass. But, what the hell, Georgie Osborne told the selfish, greedy members of the rich section of the community how to avoid paying inheritance tax, I believe, on an episode of the Daily Politics programme. So, thank God for the country helping rich such as JK Rowling, a woman of real integrity, who didn’t horde her earnings in some offshore haven. Or the lottery millionaires who also give generously to charity.

Being rich isn’t a crime. But avoiding your dues should be. After all, one Fred Goodwin is one too many.

Porkiepies,
you have made a very serious claim, in effect an accusation of murder. Let us quote you exactly, “I suggest that you have a look at Black Triangle website or Disabled People Against Cuts(DPAC). Perhaps even some of Callum’s list – a list of some of those who have died as a result of Osbourne and Duncan-Smith” We will go through your evidence bit by bit, and that may take some time, but I am sure that you will not object to airing the ‘facts’ as you see them.

Let us start with Callum’s List. Firstly he claims that his list is apolitical, but his list starts in 2010, whereas both the ESA benefit an the assessments attached to it started in 2008, following legislation in 2007.

Callum claims the following; “Might I respectfully remind the readers – most of whom are decent and fairminded human beings – that this list is compiled by disabled people, and those directly affected by the loss of a member, where welfare reforms have been an alleged contributary factor’. You may note that he stops well short of your accusation, although some of his sources do not.

There is a suggestion on the internet by someone sympathetic to Callum that he has been subject to a mental health assessment, a suggestion he categorically denies, but he does not explicititly deny that he has a mental illness. It may therefore be true that the site has been compiled by a person with a disability, but it has not been compiled by any direct contact with disabled people, or their relatives. It consists of a series of newspaper reports, mainly from local press, two or three campaign pieces by the Daily Mirror, and some information recirculated from DPAC. The site looks like it has been generated by a search engine programmed with 2010 onwards, the words benefits and deaths. It is likely, as I know ‘reporters’ can access some specialist sites that it is in the main constructed by accessing a local press site. From about mid-2012 on it contains some commentary by Callum, which may suggest that at that point the entries are contemporary.

It is very difficult to gain access to this site, because, Callum suggests, again he does not quite say it, of some sinister deliberate action by Google. There may be two very good reasons why Goggle might have problems with this site. It may be that some of the local newspapers he has downloaded onto his site object to their logos being associated with what is in effect a libellous cause. It may also be the case that many of the relatives would be unhappy with the spin he puts upon the deaths, and there have been complaints. As there is not the slightest indication that Callum has consulted with any of the families in anyway, this is quite likely.

Whether you have read this site thoroughly or not, Callum did not, as he has gone by the date of coroners reports, which will be closely associated with the date of publication, and coroners reports can be ten to twelve months after the date of death. By doing so he has accidentally given a window into the situation in 2009, and many of trhe deaths that both he, and yourself implied happened under Osbourne and Ian Duncan-Smith, happened under the Labour goverment. Yet every photograph and every aside included in the site by Callum is designed to give the impression that all the deaths referred to are the direct consequence of the actions of this goverment. It is what you may call an own goal.

Out of respect for the living I will refer to his examples anonymously. One or two of the cases are so distinctive that they may be identifiable, but I will try to keep this to a minimum. Callum is not only hostile to Atos assessors, he also seems to be hostile to mental health professionals, (or at least some of his sources are), and where I think it necessary I will clarify any distortions in that field as well, (I was an ASW for eleven years and undertook about 200 mental health assessments). To be continued.

Case1, dated 2013, death occured in 2012. Callum does not quote a local or national press article, and the quotes from the coroner’s report come exclusively from an MP. The only condition mentioned is grand mal epilepsy, which is of course a very serious illness; but how many people work with this condition? The young male died as a result of a massive seizure which took his life. Neither the MP or the relatives accept this as the cause of death, but rather it is the consequence of a reduction of his benefits. Interestingly the Mirror is not quoted, and it is running these stories all the time; the BBC did not highlight it, and neither did SKY news, both of which are pretty hostile to this goverment. Why would there be such a silence from all other sources, if the facts were as simple as the MP claims?

Case2, a suicide, published in 2013 in local press, subject had been asked to attend Job Centre, they were accompanied, and there is no indication in the article that the benefit had been changed, or that either the interview or any form of assessment was going to be negative for him – the suicide was as a result of ‘fears over benefits’. Perhaps the political left should think about its scarmongering – it may also be contributing to the stress of vulnerable people.

Case3, a suicide, published in local press, early 2010. This man was in considerable debt, caused in part by change in his benefits, which were reinstated. However the victim gave no reason for his suicide and the coroner did not link the two, perhaps indicating that not all the debt arose from the change in benefits.

Case4,2013, from local press the suicide followed a letter from his Job Centre, but there is no suggestion that his benefits were changed, or that any assessment had been undertaken . the man was divorced and had been suffering ill-health, probably depression for many years. The man seemed to be in good spirits just before the suicide, but this is not in my experience, which is limitted unique. Neither the man or the coroners report linked the two events.

Case 5, 2012; not from a press source, but from a posting on the interenet, by a political activist. The woman involved had four very serious health conditions, none of which are said to have contributed to her death, but, yes you’ve guessed it, the death was caused by a heart attack as a consequence of the actions of the goverment. She was engaged in an ESA battle at point of death, but the activist makes references which may imply that this was the last of many battles against ‘the system’. Again i am slightly surprised that if the facts are as they described by the political activist as transparent as they seem that the Mirror, BBC or Sky News did not run with this; they all run anti-goverment stories at every opportunity.

Case6, published local press 2012, death 2011. this is a not a benefit story at all, but a Community Care story, and relates to the withdrawal of a long term support package for someone with a significant mental health problem. The article is not very clear, but this man was being monitored and had a care plan under mental health legislation, and that monitoring appears to have concluded that he had improved, which given the fact that he killed himself soon after, may not have been the case. The article does not mention benefits, but there is a reference to changes in proceedure at the sheltered housing in which this man lived. It is the man’s suppoort worker, whose support is withdrawn, who is critical of the decisions of the mental health professionals involved.

Case7, local press, 2012; basically a tirade by the son of a man who died of a stroke soon after an Atos assessment found him fit for work. The problem with the tirade is that it contains ‘soundbites’ likely to be planted by a politically minded person. The matter was taken up by an MP, but interestingly only 16 out of 200 or so Labour MPs supported the MP. The man himself wanted to return to work, he could not come to terms with the fact that he was disabled and needed help. To be continued Porkiepies.

Well Porkiepies, let us continue.
Case8, published local press 2012. The source is very likely to hostile to the Conservative party. The man involved died a few weeks after DLA was stopped. His conditions were epilepsy, anxiety and chronic alcoholism. Assuming this man’s epilepsy was a significant factor he was constantly mixing alcohol and his epilepsy medication, and probably medications intended to ween him off alcohol. This does not seem like a good idea to me, but you will be pleased to know that his relative considered the alcoholism alright, because alcohol cured his epilepsy! Interestingly at this point the article droped out that the relative was pursuing the ESA claim. Callum proudly cites several cases where relatives have ‘won’ postumous tribunal cases.

Case9, published local press, 2012. This gentleman suffered from a significant heart condition, and this had been operated on. he lost his incapacity benefit, and was in the process of appeal. At this point he decided to go on holiday, and died of a heart attack.This assessment may have been wrong, but the deceased thought they were fit enough to travel a considerable distance, and undergo the stress that preparing for a holiday and travelling causes.

Case 10, published local press, 2012, suicide 2011. Male who had a long lasting mental health problem, either exacerbated or caused by drugs. He was living with ‘friends’. it is claimed that he had not taken drugs for several years. He had attempted to commit suicide before, and the reason for this was that this was what his voices told him to do. I suspect that this man would not have been honest with his GP, Psychiatrist or relatives about what was really going on in his life, over his mental state, his drug use, or home circumstances, but I do not see how either they, or the goverment can be blamed for his death.

Case 11, web-page no longer exists, local press strap line indicates suicide as a result of extreme physical pain.

Case12, report 2012, death 2011, source MP who gives little information about the death, but criticises the Atos medical examination, because it lasted only ten minutes, and was a ‘tick-box’ assessment. MP argues that GP examination should be sufficient. The MP clearly has access to private medicine, because any medical examination by my GP I have experiened lasts no more than ten minutes, and follows a ‘tick-box’ .

Case13, provided by DPAC. Written by a relative who is highly critical of everyone involved, the doctor, mental health authorities. The deceased appears to have developed a significant mental health illness and to have consistently refused both help or to have engaged with any service on a voluntary basis. The authorities are accused of unwarranted use of the mental health act, and then for not helping the woman, as she lost her job/income, her property, (it looks like she was a house owner). The relative made an application for benefits, which was accepted. The authorities are then blamed for the woman going overseas and committing suicide in another country. In relation to any mental health illness good practice is to try to work with the patient voluntarily, and this was not going to happen in this case. The authorities seem to have undertaken a mental health assessment, which may have come to a wrong conclusion. The writer does not indicate whether they were the nearest relative under the Mental Health Act; if she was and she was opposed to a compulsary admission, this would have had to be considered by the professionals involved. In any case it should make the critics of the Atos assessors think carefully before slating them. To be continued Porkiepies.

Hi there Porkiepies,
Case14, local press 2011, again nothing to do with benefits, but tossed in to make up the numbers. Essentially the death of a man being made redundant, likely to receive a thirty year redundancy payout, and so money not likely to be the issue. He was clearly badly affected by losing his job, but interestingly he applied for many jobs within the company and did not get one, (he would have been guarantteed an interview in most redundancy proceedures), and his relatives did not connect death and the redundancy.

Case 15, local press death of a woman 2011, a woman who was made redundant, but offered another post by her employer, opted for voluntary redundancy, and was likely to have received a large redundancy payment. Benefits do not seem to be the issue, she had been examined by a psychiatrist before the suicide, and evidently exhibited no suicidal tendencies. Clearly she had – but if a highly qualified psychiatrist, ( on at least £120,000 a year) can get it wrong, then perhaps we should be more tempered in our criticism of Atos assessors.

Case 16, from a legal web-site, April 2010. From a widow wanting criminal proceedings to be iniated against Atos and DWP because of the death of her husband. The text does not indicate cause of death. It indicates that ESA had been paid for six months, then stopped, but does not say why. The solicitor’s advice seems tempered, namely to gather whatever evidence they had, and then to consider her legal options. I would assume if there had been any legal mileage in this it would have hit the news big-time.

Case 17, from the Daily Mail, April 2010, a 21 year old woman commits suicide following benefit changes. Now I assume Porkiepies, being the person of immense integrity that you are, that you are now accusing Labour Party cabinet ministers of murder. Can you please confirm that you are, so I can pass your complaint on to the authorities.

Case 18, web-site no longer available.

Case 19 and 20, a double suicide, husband and wife 2011. Benefits were probably not the issue, except in so far as they were trying to evade the authorities, they may not have had access to money. One or both of this couple was suffering from a significant mental illness, with a paranoid component. If Callum knew anything about mental health he would not have included this on his list. The authorities in this case were actively trying to safeguard this couple, but the law is waited heavily in favour of the patients, who in this case were on the move.

The next case involves the Daily Manure, so it is obviously a pile of ……….

Case 22, Daily Manure, report in May, 2011, following coroners report, date of death unclear, but benefit issue followed from a decision made at least 8 months before death. The male involved died of a heart attack. Daily Manure indicated that benefit decision made by a ‘tough new Tory test’. Presumably this is referring to a medical which probably took place in September 2010, perhaps even earlier. Now as the system was set up by Labour, and was reviewed for the second time in about October 2010 I very much doubt that this is true.

Case23, Daily Manure, 2011. Interesting case, pretty much manipulated by the Manure for political ends. One of the ways the reporters manipulate the facts is that the piece reads as though everything that happened is the responsibility of the hear and now, that is this goverment, only once do they acknowledge that the whole process was introduced by Labour, but when they do it is important – they confirm that the format for the medical exaqmination was introduced by Labour. They quickly move on. The man involved had been employed by others until he had a heart attack, but then he continued to be self employed, (and self employed people tend to work much harder than employees), until advised to stop by his doctor. His medical assessment seems to have been very thorough, 39 minutes, (that is more than length of time of all the medical exaqminations I have had put together), and the recommendations were very precise, namely that he was fit for some work but not all work. There is no evidence that this man did not want to return to work, and indeed everything implies that he really wanted to do so. This and one or two other cases on this site would indicate that the medical assessment must not only saqfeguard against those trying to avoid work, it must also protect those who want to work and are not yet fit to do so. Now the idiots on this web-site who claim only right-wing people say negative things about the unemployed, seem to forget that both David Blunket and Jack Straw criticised those on benefits during the last goverment, and if they have forgotten the attitude of the left, all they need to do is read this article, “we’ve got no time for spongers who milk the system and no problem with medical tests”.

Case 24, local press, 2011, concerns a case of suicide, and it is likely that the woman involved had a history of suicidal tendencies. Benefits are not a significant issue in this case, but there is likely to be a lot more to it than meets the eye as her relatives were arrested by the police on suspicion of murder, though it must be made clear that all charges were dropped.

Case 25,26 Jan 2010, published by the Guardian. This is the case of a French woman, who like others on this site seems to have functioned well, and then developed some serious mental health condition. She became pregnant, and about six months after the birth of her baby killed both the baby and herself. Benefits were an issue, but only in so far as her sister was trying to arrange them, and she was refusing all forms of help. Her employment status, (no longer elligible for a work permit?) was a problem, but she was not homeless when she killed herself, which implies she was elligible for some income. In relation to food, heating the Children’s Services Department of Hackney Borough Council would have a responsibility to provide for her and her baby until benefits could be arranged, and indeed the Housing department would have an absolute responsibility for her, because she was a vulnerable adult with a child. These services are available 24 hours a day, I know because Ihave provided them when working out of hours. I believe this woman must have been very difficult to deal with, as I presume her sister would have ‘taken her in’ if she had been cooperative. If of course you believe that this is a case of murder then perhaps you may wish to complain to the police about the Labour ministers who were in power at the time. Now Porkiepies we are almost there, only four more murders to go through.

Well Porkiepies only four more murders to go, and guess what they were not all committed by the Conservatives.

Case 27, local press report mid-2010, date of death before June 2010. A young woman with a long history of depreesive illness, disappeared five months before. Not the slightest suggestion benefits involved, presumably included because the report dated to August 2010, and involved possible suicide.

Case 28, local press, suicide of a young male, with prolongued mental health problems. No indication of any change to benefit, but he was concerned about possible changes in the future, clearly this could not be because of scarmongering by the political left.

Case 29, suicide of Scottish male author and musician probably before June 2010, which results in the foundation of another of your web-sites Porkiepies.Gentleman involved allegedly wrote two best sellers, (though I have never heard of him), and had been a punk rock star. He did not leave a suicide note, but had recently had his incapacity benefit and housing benefit stopped. His friends blame the incoming Conservative Goverment, (why not the outgoing Labour goverment?). My guess is that there is more to this than meets the eye. I will examine Black Rainbow when we subject this piece of evidence to cross examination.

Case30, from a court reporting web-site, dated 2012. Involves a report on the suicide of a man, who had a long history of mental health problems, and had previously attempted to commit suicide in 2010. Suicide said to stem from a benefit problem because he was or wanted to do a course, (which implies he thought his problems were managable), but that the Job Centre said he must be available for work at all times. the court report does not claim to give the full story, and I think this is a problem that comes up again and again, and is usually resolved.

Now let us look at Atos. They are always referred to by the left, as ‘the French multinational Atos’, proving that the left also displays its fair share of racism and xenophobia. Who awarded Atos this contract, well if we look at Wikipedia, it was the Labour goverment, not once, in 1998, but twice, in 2003, and then again in relation to assessments for the ESA in 2007. Now if you and your friends in Black Rainbow and DPAC are alleging that Atos are engaged in a holocaust against disabled people – and you are, then it is a holocaust organised by the left.

The Atos check-list, and its ‘mechanistic’ medical assessment were also organised by Labour, and Atos have been working to it ever since. There are two types of assessment, mechanistic and impressionistic. Those that attack the idea of a check-list assessment, and favour the idea of a less formal, more subjective assessment are playing into the hands of the middle-class. they will always come out on top in that context, because they will relate better to GPs and other professionals. the losers would undoubtedly be the less literate and the more vulnerable. A mechanistic assessment will always miss things, because no one who designs a mechanistic assessment, not Doctor Gregg in Bristol, or the designers of the forms for the various Children’s Acts will think of everything. On the other hand it is likely to be less favourable to the middle class, and that of course maybe why there has been such a furore over the matter.
Now Porkiepies let us move on to Black Rainbow, DPAC and Capita.

Hi there Porkiepies,
let us start with Capita. My issue with them is that they own CRB, and everyone who uses my services has to pay £40 for a copy, of what is actually my document. I do not see why there should not be, and think this goverment might finally be looking at a fully portable CRB. At one stage I had six, four for four social work agencies, one as a fit manager, and one as a panel adviser. Now who awarded this license to print money, now let me see, ah it as Labour, after they received a bung, erh i mean donation of £1,000,00 from the founder of Capita in 2001.

Black Rainbow recirculates many of the allegations contained in Callum’s list, with particular attention I note to the death of union members. As it receives direct postings from the most strident of our trade unions, it seems to be their voice at one step removed. I do not see how you can regard it as an independent source, and it certainly conveys no objective information.

The DPAC site is even stranger. I have accessed its comments page and found a long and very worrying reply, from someone, who attended an Atos interview with his ‘dependent’ partner, who proudly told DPAC at great length how everything he did as her support was designed to prevent them accurately assessing any level of ability she had. His text was scrambled as though he himself had a mental health disorder, and he displayed both paranoid and controlling behaviour.That is who DPAC serves.

I spoke to a friend of mine, who suffered a stroke some years ago, and tried for a long time to return to work, with considerable help from DWP, but then had to acknowledge defeat, and has undergone both the medical assessment, and the follow up review. He reports that Atos were pleasant and carried out their responsibilities diligently. By the way Atos have killed less people than the NHS, (satire).

I can also report another anecdote. An aquiantance of mine, a ‘ladette’ from the seventies, who lived the rock and roll life-style, had by 2003 ended up on long term sick, and was in receipt of substantial amount of benefits, including housing benefit etc. She was on anti-depressants, (mainly for alcohol and ‘soft-drug’ issues), and was engaged in a long fight with the DWP over her benefits. She of course would fit the profile of many of the people on Callum’s list, and is there a chance that one day she might committ suicide. Well there is a chance, but perhaps not for benefit reasons. She was also running a cafe six days a week and earning considerable sums of money which was of course not taxed. Porkiepies i will now address your budget.

Hislop does not say the things you want him to say. There may be *some* level of him being a comfortable old fart which is to blame. I’m a little bit younger than Hislop but at slightly above min wage, I’m not that comfortable.

However he has seen a change from Tory politics (which he opposed quite vigorously, although I do suspect he wanted Douglas Hurd to be PM) to wonderful T Blair and back again.

Maybe, he is not convinced (and neither am I) that whatever is left by the PR disaster that is Labour is simply Not Fit To Take Government and quite frankly thinks that we need to examine some issues in at least a semi-logical fashion rather than simply baying like rabid bloodhounds every time that the rum coves we got dealt with at the last election make their inevitable screw up.

Yours in (quite agnostic) peace and the possibility that there is a solution to all this mess rather than an obsessive compulsive necessity to sledgehammer the facts into the rather restrictive selection of orifices provided by a facile ideology, religious or otherwise.

Nice
Someone disagrees with your sycophantic slatherings of a Tory toady so you have to resort to personal insults.
There is a difference between satire and slurs.
You seem to imply that everyone else is immature with your ad hominem arguments when the really immature person is yourself.

Are you Hislop’s Fag?.
Better a pro drongo than an arsesole for an aresole

Christ on a crutch! Resort to slurs???? Do you actually look at your own postings?

What does it take??!!!

At the risk of offending loadsa people and broadcasting standards:

The Tories are stupid greedy cunts run by get-rich-quick cunts, Labour are just stupid cunts run by a bunch of legal opportunist cunts and something that used to be trade-unionism, the Libs are just a bunch of political hobbyists who being idiots got dragged into just being dumb schmucks.

They are all part of the establishment. Being sarky about the idiots that simply happen to not have power at the moment does NOT AMOUNT TO CRONYISM no matter how much your addled imagination makes it so. Hislop also accused Kinnock of being a windbag when Thatch and Major were there —- was he wrong?

Oh, yeah. Hislop is also a CofE member. He hasn’t slagged of them voluably recently. Guess that makes him an accomplice to child abuse then,.

I’m amazed that people hadn’t realised that Ian Hislop was a right wing Libertarian a long time ago. He’s a typical public school boy and of the same ilk as Boris Johnston. People were taken in by the idea of liberals as sandal wearing nice guys but the reality is liberals have always been right wing libertarians with more in common with thee tea party than socialism.

After Reading the thread, it is clear that truly impartial political satire is quite hard to come by. The territory is determined by an interest in politics or current affairs. However, each person has their own natural tendency towards one corner or the other, of the personality / political spectrum.
Anyone else is just sitting on the fence or are perhaps unaware that politics is determined my personality and conscience.

The thread is pretty interesting, in the cross section of opinions expressed.
My opinion, being a socialist, is that opinions are like rectums.
Everyone has one and mostly full of faeces. Including my own at times, but at least im equipped with humility and emotional intelligence to be able to own up to my human frailty.

The joy of politics and economics, is that they are mechanisms designed to sustain life through labour, law and monetary exchange for the good of all. Those who are able to gain the most, will do so, given the chance.
I’m fine with that, so long as people are happy with me liking champagne as well as being a socialist.
And the fact i know what a fair days work looks like and i can see lots of people who have the cash, but not the blisters to have truly earned it.
That’s not me being jealous, that’s me wondering why people need so much personal wealth?

What Ian Hislop represents, is a media figure who does ok in life, commenting on life from within a bubble, talking sh1te for most of it.
That’s not satire, that’s making a career out of spouting sh1te.

That’s why i look back at HIGNFY and think of Angus “hookers & drugs” Deighton,and smile. I could go on, Frank Bough or Jimmy Saville, Gary Glitter etc etc.
Life in the celebrity & media bubble allows peoples egos to write cheques their bodies could never cash in real life.
The media illusion of life vs our own perception of reality.
A stark contrast if ever there was one.

Ian comes from the same privileged background as Clegg and Cameron etc. An exclusive public school and male “in” crowd. Private Eye is a male “in” crowd clique of established white male upper class privileged school background and Oxford and Cambridge. It has no real female staff or presence. The female receptionist who answered the phone last time I called could have been right out of Roedean or Clarence House. Detached and Aloof and no awareness what so ever. It is a closed “in” crowd.

Have got things into the Private Eye re Atos nd sent them links to others which they have used (no mention and no reference back to me. THANKS!!)

But it is a closed in crowd of elite schoolboys trying to be funny and running the school paper or college rag against the establishment and head masters and system while being totally part of it.

Private Eye needs fresh blood, or we need a new satirical newspaper. I know plenty round here who could and would be excellent contributors, and more in the know and in touch with others and real news and reality. Including yourself Tom.

Private Eye an incrowd clique of the established elite poking fun at themselves whole being totally part of the establishment they pretend to prick. and no girls, other background or race.

Have to say, it does seem a recurring theme that everyone has sch a problem with public schools & the Bullingdon club. There’s plenty to say about the government without resorting to this, and it smacks of having a rather large chip on the shoulder….hang on, I’ll get the Polyfiller out.

If you think Bullingdon Boy behaviour is acceptable then you have the problem.
If you think that snobbery is acceptable you have the problem.
If you think that these characteristics are acceptable for a government, then you really do have a problem

#BBCQT last night, Mick “money not too tight to mention” Hucknall, presented a shadow of his former self.
Preparation amounts to a quick skim of the complimentary tabloids on the plane, from his Luxury villa in Italy.

Sadly it will always pays for anyone as much in the _public_ eye as Hislop to know which side his satirical-establishment bread is buttered.

I’m glad that many commentators on this thread have the wit to recognise the difference between ‘public school in-crowd’ and ‘public school’. Married to an alumnus of a school which sends a higher number of its ‘Old Boys’ overseas as doctors, chaplains and charity workers in war zones I can only say that people are always going to judge by those with the highest profile. The unassuming are necessarily the ones no-one hears about. The carers, the poets who care about man’s inhumanity to man, the soldiers … Soldier and poet are (in the case of Sidney Keyes one and the same (d.1943). Keyes as I discover when I do a Wiki search was also (allegedly) gay but…so what? Are we _for_ freedom of expression in our calls for humanity or are we just out to bash someone with a different set of experiences values?

If ones’ schooling could be judged by callousness you would think I’d gone to a top public school. I met plenty of selfish, self-aggrandizing types in five years at my local Comp. who considered my accent to be ‘posh’ and themselves to be a cut above me by virtue of having two working legs each. If the innate callousness of the ex-public school ‘type’ were true you would expect it to be my husband who abandoned me as soon as the Tory rhetoric made having disabled relatives uncomfortable. As someone whose considerably _less_ silk lined family wants nothing more to do with her, I am reliant on the charity of product of the public school system who unlike my family has never thrown in my face what giving up his reasonably well paid job to spend ten years caring for me does to his pension or job prospects were. You might as well complain of the innate ‘scroungerdom’ of the ‘council-estate type’. Which for me pretty much sums this up for me as a silly, narrow, unthinking ‘class’ war.

My partner may be too polite to say anything but I am permanently furious that so many people seem to think that the public school mentality is always characterised by the likes of Cameron and co. Many of them are the men too polite to complain when they hear public schools decried as the place that bad manners are bred and those who don’t even dream of using that as an automatic pass to ANYTHING. In 15 years I have never once heard my partner tell anyone that he went to public school in order to prove or disprove anything. Certainly being part of any social group can help you if you are unscrupulous but I suspect (and have met) many more quiet unassuming folk who would not dream of rubbing anyone’s nose in their particular background and who would drop anything for anyone and go wherever they were needed at whatever cost to themselves. But these are not the men and women who make the news. Or the big bucks. They’re usually the ones happy to be buried in a quiet country churchyard:

“Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.”

The rich aren’t always the ones who need a gentle reminder of where we are all heading regardless of our achievements . But it might be worth a try.

I’ll second that, Morris. And IF you agreed with the Tory party just because you were defending those slandered by association I dare say you _would_ as your commentator says, have a problem. But as you obviously don’t it was bit of a broad brush accusation but you have sufficient balance to see that.

Gordon Brown never had a chance. He could have been Mother Theresa herself and would still have been demolished by the press. From the day when the Metro (note, FREE newspaper and read by just about every commuter) published a stunning pic of Mrs Cameron and a much less flattering one of Mrs Brown (I think that may have been the day they published a photo of Gordon Brown himself pulling an unfortunate face) it was obvious they were out to get him, and they did. Gordon Brown DID NOT cause global recession!!!

Having seen one of the Ray Winstone fronted Have I Got News For You episodes where they ALL got laid into Scots, in what I term in a rather xenophobic fashion, Hislop included, my respect for the man evaporated. I thought he was a guy that could discern the bullshit as it poured forth from Westminster, but clearly it’s only if it pours forth from Labour does he seem to notice. Fuck him.